Mon, 10 Dec 2018 09:41:49 +0530WeeblyMon, 03 Dec 2018 13:30:00 GMThttp://www.njoylifestyle.com/lifestyle/lifelong-commitment-to-me-continuedA year ago I wrote this (below) and wanted to share again, because I feel it is is important to continue to hold oneself accountable. Life is in a constant state of change. If we turn a blind eye to the constant change our bodies are going through, we fail to adapt to its needs.

Age 40

Age 39

​I will boldly post a bathing suit pic and say I am comfortable in my own skin and have worked hard to maintain it for 39 years. The sands have shifted a bit and as much as I want to fight gravity - gravity fights harder. But this is the only body I get to work with from start to finish.

Time and time again I will say what an amazing machine this Body is, and I will say it until the day I die. I am happy my appreciation of my the health of my body started at a young age. My parents exposed me to sports at a very early start. As a child I always wanted to move, work and challenge my body and test it's limits with physical challenges. I did and still do NJOY the journey of caring for it.

Too many of us take our body for granted. We poison it, deprive it of sleep or food, or even the opposite and live a slothish life while force feeding it excessive amounts of unnecessary calories. Either way, if we were more mindful of how it worked and what we needed to care for it, we would live with more energy, less pain, and feel better about ourselves.

Caring for our Machine is a lifelong commitment. You cannot accomplish caring for it over a week at a detox spa or on a 6 week crash diet. It takes planning and becoming more mindful to create habits. ​Take pride in your body. Love it. Nurture it, physically, mentally and soulfully. Make it a lifelong journey. It is the only thing you came into this world with and will leave with as well, it is something we should honor.

Decades ago the first fitness tracker came onto the market as a pedometer. Then came the heart rate monitor. Even the simple fitness watch with just stopwatch was an incredible asset to runners for decades. In fact, that is where I started; running on a 400 meter track and keeping splits from my watch in my head to figure my pacing. As my distances got longer, I learned to calculate distance by my pace splits. It is something I still do in my head to this day. But I love how much technology has helped us take the guesswork out of our movement patterns, motivating us to move more, giving us a realistic look at our input and output.

Call me a loyalist, I have used Garmin for almost a 15 years, but that doesn’t mean I have haven’t tried other brands. In fact, when fitness tracker companies such as Jawbone and FitBit came onto the market, I tried them out to see what type of data they had to offer and to be able to have an honest opinion when clients and gym members when they asked me for my professional opinion. At the time I was currently using a Garmin Forerunner as well for my triathlon training and competition. I found them to be of great motivation for daily basics of wellness. But as soon as Garmin put out their vivofit, I had it on my wrist within a week of its launch. It was the integration of data with Garmin Connect and other apps which I found to be superior.

I spent months tracking gym members and asking them what they were doing with their data. Most of them said, “I just try to get to 10,000 steps like they say.” I always like to ask who is ‘they’. No one really seems to know. Regardless, it was a good start and more importantly it was great to see members were becoming more conscious of the need to move more, thus creating a change, a new good habit. This was good. But what else could you do with that data collected?

This is where fitness tracking really got personal and interesting to me. Living in the heart of Chicago, walking to work every day, training for triathlons and teaching fitness classes five days a week kept me very active and allowed me to be able to eat more than the average person. Months before I made my full time move to India, I knew my work habits and movement patterns were going to change drastically and we all know we don’t have the friendliest walk about cities here in India. On top of that, my food was going to completely change to an Indian diet. My lifestyle was about to change and I didn’t want to become less fit or gain weight based on less movement and different meals. ​

I was proactive and gathered 4 months of data from my Garmin vivofit. 1. Steps: daily, weekly and monthly

I found that I was averaging 20,000 steps a day / 6 days a week, 12,000 steps / 1 day a week (rest day)

Monthly I was averaging over a half million steps.

I determined this my movement baseline.

2. Sleep: how many hours a night I averaged and the percentage of deep sleep I was getting.

This was the most fascinating data I believe which can be collected from a FT (fitness tracker)

I found that between 7:30-7:45 hours of sleep a night, I was most fresh when waking up, needed less naps and had more effective workouts.

If I consistently had less, I was more likely to have worse workout recoveries and was more vulnerable to illness. This is the last thing I needed when living in India 15,000 miles away from family

I found my body would not feel normal until I caught up on those lost minutes. Therefore I consciously made an effort to go to bed a little earlier or sleep a little later when I got off schedule. ​

​The data I gathered was fundamental to my health. My first week living in India I just allowed myself to live what I thought would be my ‘normal’ life. I immediately had to make changes. Steps dropped by over 70%. My sleep on the other hand was frequently interrupted by barking dogs at all hours of the night, which took months to be able to sleep through.

It took a very conscious effort to be able to maintain an active lifestyle like I once knew. While I only average around 17,000 per day now days, I eat less and more fresh. I have not gained weight, once been sick or lost a high level of fitness. My training has changed, but also have my goals. Overall I have adapted and maintained a healthy lifestyle and a seamless transition from one culture to another without it affecting my health.

Now my lifestyle consists of an extreme amount of traveling and my Garmin vivomove is an essential travel piece I cannot be without. It is my staple Garmin piece, because not only does it looks great, but also gives daily information which is valuable to everyone and anyone who wants to live a healthy lifestyle. The way Garmin Connect integrates to all I do with helping me maintain my lifestyle is incredible and unlike any other brand I have tried.

I love my other watches like my Fenix and even my old Forerunner (which I have used to the point where it might be on its last charge), but these are for my training. They give an entirely different level of data and information which I will write about at a later time.

Fitness Trackers give us a realistic look at how we are truly living our life. When we humans were made to move and we live in a society which restricts us from that, they really can help us maintain and improve our quality of life. Having qualified trainers and professionals who know what to do with that important information and help you assimilate it even makes the purpose of tracking more valuable. How do you use the data you collect?

I have had a lot of opportunities over the years to get to work with other companies who works with tracking technology and have always turned them down. To me, I was hoping I get an opportunity to be tied to the Garmin Brand. Being a consumer of the brand for this long, nine watches and two GPS devices later, I am delighted to stand by the Garmin name.

Life is the most precious gift we are ever given. Our bodies, our mind, our health is essential to maintain to sustain a good quality of life. So why is it that people often find it inconvenient to invest in our health? How is it we can take a blind eye to what we put in our bodies? How is it that we find it easy to have poor excuses to why we can't

invest or put effort and time in our health, yet turn around and not be able to comprehend how illness and injury has become a regular part of daily life?

It doesn't take much to improve your quality of life. You don't need a gym membership or money to make healthy choices and put into action which can positively affect your life for years to come. All it really takes is a little bit of personal responsibility.

Check out Kimberly's TEDxNUV Talk about how simple it is to invest in your health and why it is so important. ​